Authoritarian Personality Disorder Victims want to regulate fat people.

This is a textbook case of APD, if I've ever seen one - the idea that intruding in the lives of other people and messing with their business and their caloric intake will be a good thing to do.

It's said that Mississippi has an undeserved reputation for inbreeding; perhaps that's true, but nonetheless, such disorders do run in families.

Hell, that's why I ran as far as I could from mine.

ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES:

Three legislators in Mississippi want to make restaurants into an obesity police:

House Bill No. 282, which was introduced this month, says: Any food establishment to which this section applies shall not be allowed to serve food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health after consultation with the Mississippi Council on Obesity Prevention and Management established under Section 41-101-1 or its successor. The State Department of Health shall prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese, and shall provide those materials to all food establishments to which this section applies. A food establishment shall be entitled to rely on the criteria for obesity in those written materials when determining whether or not it is allowed to serve food to any person.

The proposal would allow health inspectors to yank the permit from any restaurant that "repeatedly" feeds extremely overweight customers.

The article also points out that about two thirds of Mississippians are thought to be overweight.

The proposal is most unlikely to pass, of course. But it's pretty disgusting and also politically stupid, given the numbers of overweight voters in the state. I now want to know the body weights of those three legislators. Also their alcohol consumption levels, their exercise patterns, the kinds of things they eat and whether they have ever been rude to little children or the elderly. Indeed, I want to know all their failings and I want them made public so that we can all police them appropriately.

Why not just put some kind of a sticker on fat people? Then we all know whom to taunt and despise, for their own good, of course.

The source article gives us a name and political affiliation, but only one of the three, but the bill itself is hyperlinked, to helpful biographies and legislative records. I'm not sure these folks should be minding the health of other folks - the two Republicans and one Democrat all remind me that I've seen better-preserved specimens pickled in formaldehyde.

Principal Author: Mayhall
tmayhall@house.ms.gov

Additional Authors: Read, Shows

jread@house.ms.gov

bshows@house.ms.gov

Oh, and an examination of the legislation of each member shows that this excretion is about par for the course, both in terms of significance, and in general tone. Seems that not one of them has seen a problem that can't be fixed by a law intended to forbid something, or make it compulsory.

But I have a modest proposal, not just modest, but modestly amusing. I invite a representative selection of the electorate of each district to descend upon their offices and hold an eat-in.

This seems to be JUST the sort of stupidity that should be discussed in a representative's office over takeout Chinese, pizza and Mexican.

UPDATE: According to this report, via YouTube, the legislators were "Just trying to get some attention."

Yeah, that's probably what I would say too after the mockery started.